CRISPiRATES Nation

This fictional
scenario imagines a state in which genome editing is entirely legal. According
to the CRISPiRATES manifesto, all citizens have “the right to crispr” for
playful creation and the greater good of organisms.The CRISPiRATES MICRONATION is located in the atlantic just outside of EU international waters and maintains an embassy at the TU campus in Munich. Housing and laboratory facilities are constructed on floating islands of giant genetically engineered kelp. To its inhabitants, the CRISPiRATES manifesto provides a guideline. Two problems which arise in the CRISPiRATES nation were debated and solved during the crispr.kitchen in the CRISPiRATES nation embassy in munich.

CRISPiRATES Manifesto

We are CRISPR-POSITIVE. Everybody has the right to CRISPR. The world needs freedom of gene expression and gene assembly. Use CRISPR for playful creation and the greater good of organisms.

Nature has the fundamental right to exchange genetic information. All organisms, modified or not, are an equal and integral part of nature. They are the result of unguided and guided evolutionary change.

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude to their genomes. We are not incarcerated by the genomes we are born with. With CRISPR we emancipate our bodies and accelerate the organisms to post-species evolution

Genome diversity is critical to the survival of life. We welcome and encourage all forms and mutations and genetic mobilities.

ethical dilemmata arising in the CRISPiRATE Nation

SCENARIO #1: MERMAID FANTASY

CRISPiRATE citizen A has an obsession with marine life and begins to edit itself to grow scales, fins, and gills. CRISPiRATE citizen B is deeply offended by this, and considers it akin to bestiality. CRISPiRATE B decides to take action, bringing a complaint case to the Science and Ethics Advisory Board, Citizen C.

SCENARIO #2: CRISPR YOUR SISTER

The incest taboo is among the most widespread of all cultural taboos. Is maintenance of the taboo plausible in a community, which has the ability to counterbalance genetic disorders from inbreed?